Solicitor General and Secretary for Justice and constitutional Affairs Janet Banda has said the current situation with the Director of Public Officers Declaration of Assets has put her ministry in a quandary as well as tying the hands of the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC).
She said in an interview on Wednesday that Parliament made a grave mistake when they passed the bill that creates this office.
O P C suspended Director of Public Officers Declaration of Assets Chris Tukula following his arrest by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on October 17, 2014 where he was charged on criminal offence bordering on interfering with the bureau’s Cashgate investigations.
Banda explained that the office of the Director of Public Officers Declaration of Assets is an agency of government which is part of the executive branch of government.
“What happened when passing that law was that Parliament changed the law on the floor when they were discussing the bill? The change that they made was very substantive and disturbed the whole scheme of that law,” she explained.
Banda said initially the President was supposed to appoint the director and that appointment was supposed to be confirmed by Parliament.
“But Parliament changed that and assumed the role that was supposed to be done by the President.”
“But since this is an agency under the ambits of the Executive arm of government it has created a difficulty as Parliament assumed ancillary powers that come with appointment,” She said.
Banda said according to Public Service Regulations any civil servant who is charged of a criminal offence is supposed to be automatically interdicted by the appointing authority.
In this case she said it was supposed to be the Office of President and Cabinet but because the appointing powers were shifted to an arm of government whose power is really to just legislate and hence OPC’s hands are tied.
“Since Parliament has assumed these powers it should do something about the situation,” she said.
Since Parliament appoints the director now the challenge is that the Act’s basic instruction is that the one who is given the powers to appoint is the one that has the powers to suspend, interdict or fire.
She proposed that it is important to amend that law and go back to the original scheme of the law.
Parliament g a v e recruiting power to its Public Appointments Committee (Pac) arguing that this would make the body independent of executive interference.
When called to comment on the matter Pac Chairperson Lingson Belekanyama said much as he respects the Solicitor General’s legal opinion he is still of the view that Parliament made the right decision.
“As you can see what the executive has done by carrying out an interdiction without informing us clearly shows what would have become of this office. This interdiction can therefore not be effected because Pac was not consulted as an appointing authority,” he said.
Belekanyama said he agrees with Banda to amend the Public Officers Declaration of Assets, Liabilities and Business Interests Act but where he differs with her is on what areas to amend.
“We made an oversight when we were removing the President as an appointing authority where on Section 8 part 2 of the act we retained that ‘the President may, where is considered desirable in the public interest so to do, and with the confirmation by Pac suspend the director; we want the word President to be replaced as well, it still has to be Parliament,” he said.
Belekanyama said another glaring anomaly in the act is Section 9 where it says that when the office falls vacant the President shall, within fourteen days thereafter; furnish Pac why the vacancy cannot be substantively filled with immediate effect.
“We need to amend these parts so that the President is completely deleted and should not appear anywhere at all in this Act. This is an oversight office which is supposed to be under Parliament,” he argued.
First Posted on Times Media Group Website
